Scotland's Creative Digital Initiative
The Creative Digital Initiative (CDI) has been established to provide support to creative and cultural businesses to help them develop their digital capabilities in response to the limitations imposed by Covid-19. Focused on the needs of SMES and micro-businesses, it builds on some existing programmes of support as well as providing grants to enable organisations and businesses to invest in skills and resources.
The CDI has been established to:
- Drive income generation and sustainability
- Build business resilience through diversity of offer
- Increase sector innovation and generate and share new models
It is targeted at SMEs and micros working in the creative industries and activity will run from March – Sept, offering opportunities for organisations and businesses to engage with different aspects of the support programme. Participants can be any type of business, as long as they sit within the Scottish definition of the creative industries. We are particularly keen to support businesses that have leadership or a workforce that is representative of our diverse population, or provide products and services to diverse audiences. The definitions of the creative industries can be found here
All information about the programmes, along with webinars, will be available on this site as it becomes available with links to programmes of support delivered by others.
This will include:
- Workshops and mentoring for artists and cultural organisations to help participants evaluate their skills base with their strategic and creative goals, and apply this to activities that deliver against creative ambitions and helps creative work find the right audiences – with Creative Scotland
- A programme for up to 20 creative businesses and cultural organisations to undertake a programme of workshops and mentoring on digital and business capacity and capability to achieve their growth goals with the Future Economy Company
- Opportunities for workplace learning and apprenticeships will be integrated within each component of the initiative with Skills Development Scotland
- Support and Grants for creative businesses to build their digital capacity with Scottish Enterprise, South of Scotland Enterprise, Highlands & Islands Enterprise and Digital Boost
The programme has been developed through a partnership of Scotland’s enterprise agencies (Scottish Enterprise, Highlands & Islands Enterprise, South of Scotland Enterprise, Business Gateway), Skills Development Scotland, Creative Scotland and the Scottish Government.
Places on all of these strands of support is limited and details of how to apply to get support will be featured on the site website.
The site features an enquiry service.
- If you would like to register to be informed when the grant funding comes online, please complete a form.
- If you are looking for general information on support available, please go to https://digitalfunding.xponorth.co.uk/organisations.
- If you have a specific project you are developing and looking for help for that, please provide some information on the project as this will help us in defining the support sessions and funding criteria for the different elements of the Creative Digital Initiative.
- The support highlighted through this initiative is aimed at Creative Industries. If you are not sure if you fit this definition, please check the sectoral definition at https://www.gov.scot/policies/...
